Are you interested in youth leadership for family planning and reproductive health?

Join the Leadership, Management & Governance (LMG) Project (@LMGforHealth) for the launch of the #AskLMG Twitter Q&A Series on Thursday, August 6, 2015, at 10 am ET.

MSH staffer Sarah Lindsay (@shlindsa) will be answering questions about the importance of youth leadership development; the roles youth leaders play; and the LMG Project's support for young leaders improving family planning and reproductive health in their communities.

Not on Twitter? No problem! On Thursday, we'll also answer questions on the LMG Project's Facebook page, and create a digital recap after the Q&A wraps up.

Breastfeeding is a human right, and critical for the health of both newborn and mother. Newborns benefit from early skin-to-skin contact and the antibodies in the mother’s first milk, plus factors that protect against later obesity and chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma. Mothers benefit because early breastfeeding assists in uterine shrinkage and helps prevent postpartum bleeding. In addition, frequent, exclusive, breastfeeding reduces the likelihood of an immediate new pregnancy.

Optimal breastfeeding is most advantageous when started within an hour of birth and continued exclusively for six months; research shows that it could save 800,00 children’s lives. Yet, globally, only 38 percent of infants are breastfed exclusively.

My home region of Tigray in northern Ethiopia has made great strides in ending preventable maternal mortality. Best estimates suggest that the maternal mortality ratio in our region dropped from approximately 653 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990, to 267 in 2014. However, while most pregnant women in Tigray attend at least one antenatal care visit, only 41 percent attend the recommended four visits, and less than 63 percent deliver with a skilled birth attendant.

We at Management Sciences for Health (MSH) are always looking for new approaches to support the Government of Ethiopia’s efforts to improve maternal health. We discovered one such approach through communities of practice (COP) -- or what we call technical exchange networks.

UPDATE: The Reach Every Mother and Child Act of 2015, S.1911, was introduced in the US Senate by Senators Susan Collins and Chris Coons on July 30, 2015.

Since 1990, nearly 100 million children around the world have been saved due to global efforts to reduce child mortality, and maternal deaths have been cut nearly in half. The US government has played a large role in this great success story.

Yet still, each day, more than 17,000 children’s lives and nearly 800 mothers’ lives are lost due mostly to preventable causes. If you’re like us, you think this is unacceptable. The good news is, history has shown us what we can do when we work together -- and research has backed it up.

We can end preventable maternal, newborn, and child deaths within a generation. But we must all play our role to make it happen!

The opportunity: A more coordinated US strategy

This week, the Reach Every Mother and Child Act (PDF) will be introduced in Congress, calling for the scaling up of simple solutions and requiring a coordinated, streamlined strategy to end preventable maternal, newborn, and child deaths by 2035.

UN's final MDG Report 20152015 — the finish line of the United Nations' grand experiment, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Framed in 2000, the MDGs represent a leap of faith by the global community to transform, through unified action, the lives of millions living under the threat of extreme poverty, malnourishment, inadequate health care, poor hygiene, and without dignity.

As “The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015” — released in early July — shows, significant progress has been made over the last 15 years, but the work is not complete. Among the MDGs’ eight goal framework, steady progress in the areas of child mortality, maternal health, and infectious diseases (goals 4, 5, and 6) have saved and impacted millions of lives around the world.

In the poorest, most remote areas of the world, health services are often hard to come by. Communities are marginalized economically and geographically; people often do not seek preventative care and are not reached by primary and secondary health services.

Reproductive health and family planning messages and services often do not reach these groups. According to demographic and health survey reports, in nearly every country, the poorest quintile also have the highest fertility rates, lowest contraceptive prevalence rates (CPR), and least amount of knowledge of contraception methods. And when crisis strikes, access to basic health services declines even more as resources are diverted to deal with the emergency. That’s why the theme of this year’s World Population Day, “vulnerable populations in emergencies,” observed July 11, is so important.

During humanitarian crises, women and children are especially vulnerable. More than a year after the start of the largest Ebola outbreak since the disease was discovered, assessments show that the gains that had been made in reproductive, maternal, and child health in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are in danger of regressing. Even those not affected by Ebola itself have been greatly affected by the diversion of health resources.

More mothers and children under five are surviving, but progress is "uneven across regions and countries, leaving significant gaps", the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon confirmed today, July 6, launching the final Millennium Development Goals Report (2015). Child under-five mortality has been cut in half since 1990 (reduced from 90 to 43 deaths per 1,000 live births) and maternal mortality has been reduced 45 percent -- with much of the reduction occuring since 2000.

Targeted investments in fighting diseases, such as HIV/AIDs and malaria, have brought unprecedented results. Over 6.2 million malaria deaths were averted between 2000 and 2015, while tuberculosis prevention, diagnosis and treatment interventions saved an estimated 37 million lives between 2000 and 2013.

Worldwide, 2.1 billion have gained access to improved sanitation and the proportion of people practicing open defecation has fallen almost by half since 1990.

MSH & The Tao of Leadership

Partnership and Empowerment: We take our inspiration from the 3,500 year old Tao (Way) of Leadership, working shoulder to shoulder with our local colleagues and partners toward their empowerment and success.